Does zero exist as material, immaterial or both?

Does zero what exist? If you mean zero "stuff", you'll have to explain exactly what "stuff" is in order for your question to make any sense. Good luck with that.

 

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Why?
zero stuff is what it is, zero stuff... ( absolute terms )

There is no need to define "stuff", as regardless of how you define it, there is none (zero) of it...

You could spend eternity attempting to define what "stuff" is and all I have to say all along is "uhm...that's nice...but there is none of it"

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I'm sorry, but I can't tell if there is zero of some unknown thing. Tell me what it is, and I'll tell you if none of it exists.

 

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Why? Why would I bother, if zero of what ever it is, is all there is(n't)?

 

I had an electronics instructor in high school. His name was Mr. Secore. We would do problems in class, on the board. He would write down Ohm's Law and ask us what the answer was. Someone would raise there hand, and they would say, "5"! Mr. Secore would yell, "5 what!?" 5 chickens? 5 dancing elephants? 5 what? And the student would reply 5 ohms! The same is true for 0. 0 what?

Anyway, that's my story about NOTHING.

 

"...We turn clay to make a vessel; But it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the vessel depends.
We pierce doors and windows to make a house; And it is on these spaces where there is nothing that the usefulness of the house depends.
Therefore just as we take advantage of what is, We should recognize the usefulness of what is not."
LAO TZU
This thread made me think of that. In the zen sense though I believe things are supposed to blow your mind and the exact "answer" to your questions about zero are not as important as the asking of the question and exiting basic either/or consciousness.

Also contradicting what someone quoted about infinity, there are multiple descriptions of various infinities as Cantor showed. Something about an aleph. I am wondering if there is a similar number of categories of zero some mathematician will find (or has found and I don't know about it). Crazy.

 

There is no doubt that thinking about zero, nothingness, infinities, Klein bottles etc expands the creative imagination and understanding of existence. Setting up deliberate paradoxes to solve as in the use of zen-isms I guess is supposed to do just that.

The ramifications of Zeno's paradoxes, for example, are huge, pushing "dimensional-ism" to the limits forcing, in part, the need for calculus to develop or be refined and so on. IMO

Personally I tend to feel that it is in the use of a dualistic approach, dialectic, polarized etc locks the imagination into playing the game of the paradox where as taking a more "singularity" point of view or approach opens up windows otherwise forced shut for the sake of "placating" the paranoia [ fear] of our own sense of potential as human beings.

Claiming either material or immaterial is a distinct form or dualism. [ When in fact neither define what is real or not to begin with ]

That said, all intellectual outcomes are thought of as being immaterial, yet all take energy and effort , sometimes accumulated from thousands of years research and thinking. [such as this thread for example ] The fact that energy has been spent on something immaterial defies conservation laws. Yet we do it all the time.
Considering absolutely everything as material including vacant space [ zero, nothingness] then could prove advantageous,. Rather than attempting to prove zero to be material reverse the situation and attempt to prove it as immaterial.

Example JamesR mentioned a an imaginary rose. To imagine a rose takes energy, effort [ ask any painter ]
Is the imaginary rose material or immaterial? [given that energy is consumed to create it]
Or do we simply call everything including vacant space, zero etc, as material and work from there?

 

Matter plus antimatter gives energy.
Why don't they just cancel each other out?

Maybe energy is nothing.

 

An imaginary rose is a thought. Some thoughts are about real things, some about unreal, non-existent things (usually a confection of both).

 

but does that negate the material nature of the thought? [even if it is about a non-existent "thing"]

 

Your original question was whether the rose was material or immaterial. Clearly, an imagimed rose is a thought. That rose is an idea - a thought, not a material rose.

Now the question is are thoughts material. I don't know. They must have some material aspects to them I suppose .. nuerons, synapses, energy transfer thereupon.

Kinda reminds me of;

Surgeon;
In all my days of operating on the human body I have never seen a spirit

Preist;
True, but have you ever seen a thought ?

 

Good points and ones that expand the nature of the question about immaterial and material.

As JamesR wrote the thought of a rose had an effect on him....
The thought may have a material causation, [the act of imagining] the idea of the rose may be immaterial, yet the immaterial rose has a material effect on JamesR
It is the image of the rose's state of existence [ material or immaterial, real or unreal, actual or fantasy ] that is in question. IMO
Like wise with the notion of a spirit used in your example.
or any other "idea" such as the huge impact/effect of E=mc^2 for example on the human condition.

Another : Energy has never been seen either. We only experience or see an effect we attribute to it.
Is energy material or immaterial or both?

 

would you? What would that argument look like?

ETA:fixt

 

Start with a question:
Name one number that has a coherent value if zero is not present to compare it with?

 

Scientists actually have seen thoughts. Do a google search for "Brain Researchers Can Detect Who We Are Thinking About". I would post a link, but it won't let me because I have under 15 posts.

 

You have seen energy, in fact that's all you see. Even your eyes and your seeing is energy.

 

define energy?

 

Energy is activity. What do you think the universe would look like if all activity ceased, from the waving of subatomic particles, to the expansion of space itself?

 

But it is not even certain that we "see" motion. We SEE the ball in different positions. We remember it being in a previous position a microsecond before. From this our brain infers movement. We construct it as a trajectory projected thru space. But have we really seen that movement. I don't think so. Is activity/energy therefore more a construct than an experience? Perhaps..

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